


Aspirations

by spacesix



Series: Requiem [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, M/M, Minor Violence, Past Child Abuse, both are only very lightly implied though, past homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 19:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11214738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacesix/pseuds/spacesix
Summary: Vignettes in the lives of Gavin and Ryan before It all began. Set prior to the events of 'Memories'.Edited 6/24





	Aspirations

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is sort of a prequel to Memories? But not really? I dunno but Memories will also have a short-ish sequel coming out eventually bmaybe. This is also an excuse to test out the queue feature here so whoop let's see if this comes out on the 16th.

“You should stop that,” a thickly accented voice said suddenly, “it’ll absolutely wreck your lungs.” Ryan exhaled the smoke in his lungs in a drawn out sigh and crushed his cigarette on the deck railing. 

“Don’t you know it’s a bad idea to sneak up on people in this town?” he said, pulling his mask back down to re-cover his mouth before turning around. The kid was tall, skinny as a beanpole and dressed to the nines in an expensive looking button-up and skinny jeans topped off with gold rimmed sunglasses. Normally, wouldn’t have been a problem; people liked to show off their wealth in these parts: money meant that you were powerful, and power meant that you didn’t get fucked with by alley rats and meth heads. However, this kid couldn’t have been any older than seventeen, and was standing in the middle of the shadiest pub in town, and was wearing sunglasses indoors of said pub _at night_. Probably some rich kid out to have fun on daddy’s credit card. “What are you even doing in here, kid?” 

“I want to hire you.” He said simply, walking over to lean on the railing next to the other man. 

Ryan chuckled. “I’m not a prostitute. If you want a good night I suggest you try someone else.” 

“Oh, no, I know exactly what you are, James Haywood.” There was a knife to Gavin’s neck shoving him back into the wood not a second after he finished his sentence. 

“How the _fuck_ do you know my name, kid?” Ryan demanded in a menacingly low voice. The boy only smirked. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“You will tell me,” he pressed the knife harder, drawing a thin life of blood, “or I will slit your throat right here, right now, and not one person will bat an eye.” The boy swallowed and his adam’s apple bobbed against the razor sharp steel. 

“Quite easily actually, all things considered.” His voice trembled, betraying his smile. “How about a deal, eh? You take my job, and I’ll get rid of every database that has dirt on you.” 

“And how exactly am I supposed to trust you will?” 

“You can’t, but are you willing to take that risk?” Ryan hesitated for a second, withdrawing his knife a millimeter before shoving it right back. 

“If you betray me, kid,” he growled, “I will find you, I will kill you, and I will kill everyone you know and love. Very, very slowly. Do I make myself clear?” 

“Crystal.” 

“Good.” He stepped back and sheathed his knife in his pocket in one smooth movement. “Now, since we’re working together, what am I to call you?” 

The boy grinned widely as if nothing had just happened. “You can call me Goldie, Mr. Vagabond. It’s a pleasure to make a deal with you.” 

… 

Ryan was acutely aware that he was very much fucked. It’s not like his employers would care that he was currently in an abandoned warehouse in the desert, chained to a steel pillar, and beat to hell and back with his captors trying to hook up alligator clamps between him and the car battery next to him. They would just tear up his paycheck and hire another merc to replace him. He sighed loudly. 

“Come on,” he drawled, “it’s like you guys have never jumped a car before.” His snarky comment earned him the butt of a pistol crashing across his cheek and he grunted, but continued talking anyway. “Never realized I’d have to wait so long for my torture. Next time I’ll call ahead and make an appointment.” The leader’s harsh fingers dug into one of the bullet holes in his shoulder, and Ryan had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out at the pain. 

“You better watch your _fucking_ mouth, Vagabond. You don’t exactly have a lot of options here, and talking shit ain’t doin’ you any favors.” The men with the battery had finally figured out that the cables were, in fact, not supposed to connect to each other and were now having the time of their lives creating sparks from the circuit. “Now, are you gonna tell m-” 

The loud bang of the door being kicked open and a following voice interrupted him. “Vagabond!” Oh dear god, Ryan thought to himself, not him again. “It’s been too long, love! What’re you doing in a dump like this for?” Gavin strutted in like he owned the place, the light from the door silhouetting him and the body of the guard he was dragging. By the shocked looks of the crew that was probably mirrored on Ryan’s own face, they were as bewildered by the boy’s appearance as he was. 

“Oh, great. Who called the slut in?” one of the crew members next to Ryan muttered, rolling his eyes. There was a bullet in his forehead not a second later, and Gavin strolled towards where Ryan was tied up, his gold-plated gun glinting as brightly as his smile. 

“Come on now, boys, no need to be so rude. I’m just here to pick up my charge is all.” He pushed his sunglasses into his hair and started to pick the lock on the chain with a bobby pin, the rest of the crew still too stunned to stop him. “And really, Charles? A car battery? Bloody hell, I could’ve been here an hour from now and you wouldn’t have had that thing set up right.” Ryan couldn’t help but choke out a pained laugh, only to be cut off by a bullet lodging itself in the beam behind him. 

Gavin just calmly set the lock back down and turned to face the crew. “Charles, you can never could just let me get what I want, could you, Charles?” he scolded, feigning disappointment even though he was still smiling. The mentioned man was frozen in place, his gun shaking in his outstretched hand. “I don’t _enjoy_ being mean to you, you know.” The golden gun flashed again in the corner of Ryan’s vision as Gavin fired, laying each of the crew flat in seconds. He sighed and turned back to finish the lock. “Never liked ‘em anyway. Bunch of morons, the lot of them. Only thing they were good for was an easy safehouse.” The lock clicked off and the chain dropped to the ground with a heavy rattle. Ryan groaned at the loss of restriction and slumped heavily against the beam. “No time for resting, love. I know a doctor who can get you to rights in no time. You okay to walk?” 

Ryan gave a vague grunt in response, stretching his arms and legs slowly to get feeling back. “Not much of a talker, are you?” He flapped his hand dismissively. “No matter, let’s just go” He looped Ryan’s arm over his shoulders and helped him outside, guiding them expertly around the pools of blood and bits of…whatever…that lay around the corpses so he wouldn’t get his shoes dirty. 

Ryan’s vision adjusted quickly to the light, and he gave Gavin a once-over to check for injury as the lad started up his, thankfully not gold, bike and brought it over to where he stood. Leather jacket on top of a graphic tee, denim short shorts, black tights, with shiny rose gold high tops and matching sunglasses; not a drop of blood on any of it. The outfit was so ‘Gavin’ that Ryan almost wished he couldn’t see again. It did look good on him though, he had to admit, and he didn’t seem injured in the slightest. “Don’t you have appropriate work clothes? Like at all?” 

“He speaks!” shouted Gavin, throwing his hands in the air. “And these are my work clothes, Vagabond. Now get on the bike and hold on tight, we’ve got a ways to go and I’ve got to be back in the city by night.” He flicked his sunglasses back onto his face as Ryan complied. “Oh, and try not to get too much blood on my jacket, yeah? It’s a bitch to clean.” 

“Shut up and drive, Goldie. The less time I spend bleeding out, the less blood will get on your clothes.” The wind whizzing by as they started down the road drowned out any response, but Ryan could feel Gavin’s shoulders shake as he laughed. If he smiled a bit himself, Gavin had no way of telling. 

… 

“Stop calling me kid. You can’t be that much older than me.” Gavin winced as Ryan poured more antiseptic over his leg. He was mostly numb to it from his arm getting the same treatment a few minutes ago, but it still stung like a bitch. 

“I absolutely can be that much older than you, Gavin. You’re like, nineteen at most.” 

“I’m twenty-three, Ryan. And you’ve got to be thirty at most.” When exactly they became ‘Gavin’ and ‘Ryan’ instead of ‘Goldie’ and ‘Vagabond’ was beyond them, but neither was complaining. 

“Thirty-one, actually…hey wait that’s bullshit! There’s no way you’re that old. I want to see an I.D.” He laughed and smeared some Neosporin over the gauze before slapping them onto Gavin’s scrapes a little rougher than necessary before wrapping them down with gauze. 

“Do you really think I carry an I.D., much less have a legal one? You realize what we do for a living, right?” Gavin laughed back. “Thanks for patching me up again, Ry. I owe you one.” 

“Fair point I guess. I still call bullshit on your age though.” He stood up from where he was crouched on the bathroom floor and ruffled Gavin’s hair. “Don’t mention it. What else am I supposed to do? Let you bleed all over my nice, freshly blood-free tile? It’s not like you haven’t already caused enough damage picking the lock on the front door fourth time so far this month.” He helped Gavin stand up off the side of the bathtub and lean against the sink while he re-packed the medical kit. “You can pay me back by showing me your birth certificate and not crashing your bike again. Or maybe by investing in some actual clothes that will protect you from stuff like that.” 

“In your bloody dreams. Motorcycle gear is the most unflattering thing ever made.” Gavin watched Ryan stretch up to put the box back on top of the cupboard and broke down laughing when the action caused the man’s shoulders, and elbows, and knees to crack loudly. “You know what, Ry,” he gasped out, “I take it back, I take it all back. You are _so old_.” 

“Shut your fucking mouth, you infant.” Ryan’s face was flushed in embarrassment, but he couldn’t help but laugh with him. “I’m going to murder you if those ribs of yours don’t first.” 

… 

“Did you ever think you’d be doing this, Gav?” They were sitting on Ryan’s couch with a shitty movie muted on the television, Gavin lying against the armrest playing a game on his phone with his legs across Ryan’s lap as the man read. 

“Doing what? Sitting on my friend’s couch on a Tuesday night ignoring the fact that I have work tomorrow? Probably.” 

“No, no. You know, the whole,” He stopped rubbing Gavin’s knee and waved his hand around. “The whole crime thing. Did you always want to do this?” 

“Did anyone? Didn’t realize cat burglar and mass murderer were professions they advertised in grade school these days.” 

“Then how’d you get in?” Gavin set his phone down, and Ryan did the same. His voice was unusually quiet when he spoke again. 

“What’s past is past, Ryan, and sometimes its better that it stays that way.” He chuckled, but it sounded a bit sad. “For all it doesn’t matter though, I really wanted to be a cinematographer when I was growing up. What about you? What’d you dream of being as a kid? I assume it wasn’t what you do now” 

Ryan smiled fondly up at the ceiling. “Computer engineering. Went to college and had an internship for a few years and everything before things went to hell.” He took one of Gavin’s hands in his and rubbed his thumb along the other man’s knuckles. “Why’d you stop the cinen-seme-the movie thing anyway? I’ve seen the photos you take. You would’ve been incredible.” 

“Parents kicked me out before I could do anything about it ‘cause of the whole…relationship thing. I filmed a few things here and there but cameras were expensive and money was tight after, so nothing came out very good.” 

Ryan just looked a bit perplexed, and a lot angry. “What relationship thing? And where the fuck are your so called ‘parents’. I think I need to have a talk with them.” 

Now Gavin looked confused. “What do you mean ‘what relationship thing’? Didn’t I tell you already? I'm gay.” He reached up with his free hand and poked Ryan in the cheek. "Now stop scowling, you’re gonna get lines even your paint won’t be able to cover up and then all the cops will know you.” 

“No, Gav, you didn’t tell me that. 'ts not like it would be an issue even if you did, though.” He batted Gavin’s hand away from his face. “I’m dead serious about your parents though. They need to be taught a lesson.” 

Gavin looked timid and stared at his lap. “You kinda…already did a pretty good job of that, Rye.” 

Ryan felt cold. “What exactly does that mean, Gavin?” 

“Do you remember that first job I gave you? All those years ago?” Ryan stared at him in wide-eyed shock. Gavin refused to look anywhere but down. 

“You didn’t. Gav, you, you can’t jus-” 

“Since when do you care about hurting people, Ryan! They weren’t good people Ryan. They didn’t do good things.” Gavin gripped Ryan’s fingers on the hand that had been holding his, squeezing harder with every word as his breathing got more ragged. “They weren’t good, not to me, not to my brother or my sister or the other kids not to anyone they-they-” he surged up suddenly and grabbed Ryan’s shoulders as if it would make the man believe him more, “Ryan, they deserved it, Ryan, they weren’t innocent not at all you have to believe me they deserved it I had to you had to-” he choked on his sobs as he gasped for breath. 

Ryan pulled him into a tight hug and, when he didn’t protest or try to squirm away, started to pet his hair and rub circles on his back to try and calm him down. “It’s alright, Gav, you’re alright. I believe you.” He tried his best to sound soothing, but he couldn’t hide the tremble in his voice or the (inaudible, he hoped) pounding of his heart. “It’s fine, I’m not upset. Deep breaths, Gav, please, you’re just fine.” 

It took nearly twenty minutes of reassurances and breathing exercises before Gavin’s breathing settled close enough to normal for Ryan to let him go. He sat back on Ryan’s lap and scrubbed the tears and snot off his face. “’m sorry, Rye…” 

“It’s alright, Gavin. I’m sorry for setting you off like that.” 

“It’s not your fault. I overreacted.” 

“No, Gavin, you didn’t, but now isn’t the time to argue about this. It’s late and you must be exhausted, we can talk about this in the morning. You wanna go to bed?” Gavin nodded. 

It took Ryan a long time to fall asleep that night as he watched Gavin finally look relaxed again. 

… 

It had been one-thousand six-hundred and thirteen days since that first night at the bar, one-thousand four-hundred and ninety-one days since the warehouse, one-thousand on-hundred and fifty-six days since Gavin showed up in his apartment uninvited for the first time and continued to do so, one-thousand and sixty-five days since he had showed up _invited_ for the first time and continued to do so, seven-hundred and forty-five days since Gavin said yes to Ryan’s request for a proper date, and fifteen and a half days since Ryan last heard Gavin’s voice asking for a rain check on their anniversary dinner. Ryan understood of course; sometimes work got in the way and they both had a reputation to keep. Dates got cancelled a lot. Nights alone happened a lot. 

It had been thirteen hours since their daily mantra of “come home safe” and “I will” had been repeated out loud, in a voicemail he left for Gavin early that morning before the boy was likely to even be awake, and twelve hours since it had been repeated in text. “Come home safe” he’d sent Gavin thirty minutes before his flight. He received a string of kissy faces and blue hearts a few minutes later, much to his embarrassment. 

It had been three hours since Ryan had arrived at the airport to pick up his boyfriend. He didn’t know why he arrived so early, but he couldn’t wait to leave again, especially since he knew he was leaving with the love of his life in the passenger seat next to him. 

It had been an hour and a half since Gavin’s place landed and disembarked, forty minutes since the last of the baggage check had been cleared out from that flight, twenty minutes since Ryan had seen the board on the terminal change to signal the next flight, five minutes since Ryan had gotten back in his car and sat watching the planes go overhead. 

It had been thirty-seven days since Ryan had seen Gavin, twenty-one and a half days since he heard from him, twenty and a half days since he left their-no- _his_ house a pile of ash in an empty lot and bought a one-way ticket to Georgia, and twenty days since he thought of his love. 

**Author's Note:**

> catch me at spaceholts.tumblr.com


End file.
